Azadin scoffed at Midiam's request.
"If I take you as my servant, then everything that happened here today becomes my responsibility. You beat up servants indiscriminately—surely you knew that they were backed by the Savan family? Were you trying to pit me against them?"
"N-no, that's not it."
Midiam was flustered by Azadin's questioning.
"I just couldn't stand how they were belittling and insulting you."
"I appreciate that, of course. But if you want to keep my gratitude, you must not become my servant. If you had beaten them up as Midiam of Aether, I should be grateful to you. But if you had done it as my servant, I would have to correct your behavior. I might even have to flip you over and give you a spanking."
"Ugh, you're so mean! You're so kind to the people of Hubris, but why not to me?"
"That's because you're not one of my people."
At that moment, Azadin stopped in his tracks. The Emperor's Voice had spoken to him.
[A petitioner has appeared. However…]
"Are they dead? Which direction?"
[To the west. Ah, they've just taken their last breath.]
"Damn it."
Azadin sprinted toward the western gate. A horrific massacre had already unfolded there—soldiers lay slain, while mercenaries, having turned into monsters, feasted on the corpses.
"Grrr!?"
"Meat?"
The mercenaries, now heavily transformed, had four spider legs protruding from their bodies.
"They only had two earlier."
"They seem to change more drastically as time passes."
Azadin took off his cloak and wrapped it around his arm.
"Prepare the fire."
With those words, he stepped forward.
"Grrr!"
A mercenary, already transformed into a spider-like monster, lunged at him. But the moment it entered Azadin's range, he delivered a lightning-fast kick to its jaw.
—Crack!
The movement was so fast that it left only a blur, and the mercenary's neck snapped as its body was sent flying backward. Its spine shattered, its nerves severed, and violent convulsions wracked its body.
However, the attack had taken a toll on Azadin as well. The sheer force he exerted had been immense, allowing for both rapid execution and recovery, but the backlash was enough to shake his balance.
A second spider mercenary leaped at the opening.
"Hup!"
Azadin swiftly drew the curved sword at his waist and swung it as he staggered like a top running out of spin.
—Slash!
The mercenary's arm and two of its spider legs were severed, blood spraying into the air. The moment Azadin hit the ground, he rolled away to avoid the falling droplets before quickly getting back on his feet.
In an instant, he had taken down two monstrous mercenaries, but…
"Kiik!"
"Kegh…"
The mercenaries coughed and started rising again.
The one with the broken neck now had swarming spiders writhing over the injury, seemingly replacing its nervous system. The one that had lost an arm had spiders clustering over the severed stump, stopping the bleeding.
Both should have died instantly from such wounds, yet they remained alive.
"It seems complete dismemberment is the way to go."
Azadin glanced at his curved sword. The blade was starting to chip.
A price paid for cutting through an arm and two spider legs in a single stroke.
"Hm."
Azadin reversed his grip on the sword, adjusting it back to a standard hold.
"Kieeek!"
"Graah!"
The spider mercenaries lunged again, weapons in hand, swinging their monstrous legs as they charged. Azadin lowered his stance and moved.
—Blur!
His figure became hazy, and in an instant, he had already passed through the enemies.
One mercenary had been severed at the waist, his body splitting in two. The other had been cut nearly in half, but his embedded sword had snapped off inside the wound.
"Tch. That was a good sword… and now it breaks here."
Clicking his tongue, Azadin held the remaining half of the broken blade.
The mercenary who had been cut in two twitched and attempted to crawl forward, but the wound was too severe—he soon perished. However, the one with the sword lodged in his body ignored his injuries and charged at Azadin.
At that moment, an arrow suddenly flew in and struck the mercenary.
—Thunderclap!
Lightning sparks crackled as the spiders were instantly fried.
"Kyahh!"
The mercenary spasmed and collapsed, unable to rise again.
"I knew it! If they're weak to fire, then they must be weak to lightning too! The spiders inside them are so small…"
Midiam spoke excitedly but suddenly felt dizzy and swayed. Ishmael, startled, moved to support her, but Azadin was faster.
With a swift motion, he lifted his leg to prop Midiam up, preventing her from falling, much like a door on the verge of collapse being steadied.
"Be careful. Beauty of Nature is a colorless grimoire. Spells like Thunderclap that generate lightning have terrible efficiency. Just because it's in the grimoire doesn't mean you should use it recklessly. Still, using Thunderclap at your age is impressive. As expected of Aether. I'm impressed."
"....!"
Midiam's shoulders lifted with pride at his words.
"Right? There aren't many people my age who can use Thunderclap. Haha. With this beauty and talent, I must be a truly sinful woman."
"Take a break. Looks like using too much magic is giving you a headache."
Azadin gave her a compliment, then bent down to pick up the weapons dropped by the fallen mercenaries.
"Now, shall we set the spiders on fire?"
He gathered some bundles of dry grass and scattered them over the corpses before lighting them with a torch. Though the flames only left scorch marks on the bodies, they were more than enough to fatally wound the spiders.
"This method works well, but what will you do if a large number of enemies appear at once?"
Ishmael asked coldly.
Taking down two of them was fine. But more than that?
Azadin couldn't use magic, and relying solely on martial arts had its limits.
Wouldn't that make it even more necessary for Azadin to have servants who could use magic?
"Wouldn't it be best to accept us as your servants now…?"
"I'll do what I can. Besides, the clan members I've met in this distant land wouldn't dare look down on me, would they?"
Azadin, in the end, refused to take them as servants and instead picked up the weapons scattered on the ground from the fallen mercenaries.
Even these were in poor condition. The mercenaries had wielded their weapons with monstrous strength after being tainted by the spiders of the Kurt Divine Clan, leaving them damaged.
"An axe or a halberd would be better."
Gathering the weapons, Azadin made his way toward the western gate.
***
The western gate had turned into a slaughterhouse. Once the mercenaries started shedding blood, they couldn't suppress their excitement and descended into a frenzy of killing and cannibalism.
The more they indulged, the faster their bodies mutated. Now, six spider legs had sprouted from their backs.
Watching the carnage were the mercenary captain and Tarkiev.
"Hey, is this really okay? You're looking for a copy of the Book of the Divine King, aren't you? Then shouldn't we…"
Tarkiev pressed the mercenary captain.
"Hmm. It's not exactly what I expected, but… things are going well."
"Going well!? Look, if this keeps up, there's no way someone carrying the Book of the Divine King would come to this village! The place needs to look peaceful for people to show up!"
"We'll clean up the bodies. As long as we take down the resistance quickly and get rid of the corpses, it'll be fine."
As the mercenary captain spoke, he noticed a triangle drawn on the ground.
"What's this?"
"A triangle on the ground…?"
Blood was smeared around the triangle, and a mercenary was feasting on a corpse nearby. Tarkiev suddenly muttered in shock.
"The Gold Coin Devil?"
"The Gold Coin Devil? You mean the Emperor's Heralds? The herald clan?"
The mercenary captain tilted his head in confusion.
"Now that I think about it, the copies of the Book of the Divine King were spread into the world because of the herald clan, weren't they? They must be desperate to retrieve them. Perhaps… the herald lineage has one."
"You're not actually thinking of fighting the Gold Coin Devil, are you?"
Tarkiev asked in alarm.
"Of course. If I think about it, the ones who infiltrated our camp and stole from us cleanly—there aren't many who could pull that off besides them. No common thief could do something like that."
With that, the mercenary captain kicked the mercenary who was devouring a corpse. The man let out a scream and tumbled to the ground.
"Let's see… No gold coins. Spent them, huh? Good. That means the heralds will come looking."
The mercenary captain smirked.
"If we know when they'll show up, we'll have the advantage. Should we set a trap?"
However, before he could finish his sentence, an arrow flew straight toward his head.
"Tsk."
The mercenary captain casually caught the arrow with his hand, stopping it with ease.
"Interesting. That was fast. So those bastards were watching us too, huh?"
He casually tossed the arrow aside, but before it hit the ground, another arrow was already flying toward his face.
"You still don't get it? That won't work."
The mercenary captain sneered as he reached out to catch the arrow again. But this time, something was different. The arrow shaft was slippery, coated in oil, making it impossible to stop just by grabbing it.
And it was stronger than the first shot.
The first arrow had been a feint, meant to lure him into underestimating the second.
"Wha—?!"
—Thunk!
The arrow slid past his grip and struck him squarely between the eyes. The bridge of his nose shattered, and both of his eyes lost function. The ocular muscles controlling focus—the intraocular muscles—had been severed.
At the same time, a man wearing a hawk-shaped mask dashed forward.
Startled, Tarkiev instinctively reached for his sword, but then…
'Wait. Do I really need to protect these guys?'
Seeing Tarkiev's hesitation, the masked man ignored him and lunged at the mercenary captain.
His blade gleamed as it aimed straight for the captain's neck.
—Crunch!
But instead, it was the sword that broke.
From the mercenary captain's chest, spider legs had shot out and impaled the masked man.
"Hah, so this is an Emperor's Herald? Amusing."
The mercenary captain sneered, moving his spider legs back and forth, intending to tear open his opponent's wound.
But then—
—Snap!
The spider legs fell off.
"..."
He had thought his legs had pierced the man's chest, but in reality, they had already been severed during the initial clash.
The now-useless spider legs merely clung to the man's chest, caught on his leather armor.
"You're an interesting one too, cultist."
"You bastard."
The mercenary captain tried to pull out his remaining spider legs and reach for his sword, but his opponent was faster.
The masked man grabbed the sword at the captain's waist, drew it in one swift motion, and simultaneously landed an uppercut with his other hand.
—Crack!
The single strike shattered the captain's jaw, knocking him unconscious.
But almost immediately, he regained consciousness. The spiders inside his body had activated his reflexes, forcing his body awake through spinal reflex.
"A monster…!"
The mercenary captain, a clear abomination, was instead astounded by the power of his opponent.
Mustering all his strength, he extended his remaining spider legs.
Two shot behind him, stabbing into the ground to support his balance, while the other two lunged forward to attack the masked man.
But the masked man had already vanished from sight.